Bailout Perspective

What do all these taxpayer bailouts really add up to? Read it and weep, as reported in Politico:



As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. taxpayers.

It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners.

Amid the tissue paper:

• More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. loan guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending arm of General Electric Corp.

• $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loan guarantees doled out from the Treasury Department to taxpayers, financial institutions and credit companies.

• $300 billion for homeowners from the Federal Housing Authority.

• $25 billion in assistance for auto companies from a program overseen by the Energy Department, which is separate from the bailout proposal that tanked last week in the Senate.

• And $5 trillion worth of new money, loan guarantees and loosened lending requirements from the Federal Reserve Bank.

According to Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched these numbers, that amounts to more government aid and assistance than nine other historic bailouts and big government outlays combined.

The New Deal, for instance, cost an estimated $32 billion in its day, which would be about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The Marshall Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is the equivalent of a paltry $115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The French got $15 million, which would be worth about $217 billion today.

If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA, you still get to just $3.92 trillion — not even half of the taxpayers’ exposure today, according to Bianco.

Maybe Washington is taking its cues from Springfield in the Albano era. Here is the front of the program from Albano's 1998 inaugural.



This is the full program. (click to enlarge)



A Rogue's Gallery on the back:



1998-1999 represented the peak of the Albano mayoralty. By 2000 it was all starting to unravel and would soon come tumbling down in a wave of scandal and mixed metaphors.

Here's some updates from the Stephen Geoffreys cult. Someone sent me a picture from the Fright Night reunion tour posing with Stephen Geoffreys.



Stephen is also appearing in a movie called "New Terminal Hotel" with fellow 80's has-been Corey Haim. This is Stephen in a still from the new film.



Here is Corey Haim in his adorable youth. Critics said he looked like a poodle.



Earlier this year Haim had to take out an ad in Variety begging Hollywood for a job.



I guess it worked.

Finally, here is a video about the gay life at UMass.